And the winners aren't ... Ant and Dec

Ant and Dec with Robbie Williams at the British Comedy Awards, 2005. The report made clear they knew nothing of the vote rigging. Photograph: Richard Young/Rex Features

When Robbie Williams agreed to present a British Comedy Award live to Ant and Dec, it left the organisers with a stellar guest list for the ITV show, but a slight problem: The Geordie double act had not actually won a prize. So it was convenient that the People's Award, supposedly voted for by viewers on the night, should go to them.

The only flaw, it emerged yesterday, was that the public had instead voted in a telephone poll for the award to go to Catherine Tate, at 35p a time.

The latest premium rate phone-in scandal emerged as ITV published its investigation, carried out by the law firm Olswang, into the viewer vote at the 2005 British Comedy Awards.

The revelations came on the same day that ITV was fined a record £5,675,000 by the media watchdog for "seriously and repeatedly misleading its audience" with phone-in competitions and votes on some of its biggest shows, including Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Gameshow Marathon.

ITV was immediately accused of trying to deflect attention from its record fine by concurrently publishing its own report on the Comedy Awards affair. Ant and Dec were said yesterday to be "appalled" and promised to return the 2005 award.

They were presented with the award, despite Tate, best known for her sketch show, having received more votes. Olswang concluded: "Insufficient evidence was available in order safely to conclude how or why this occurred."

There was a second issue regarding the fact that viewers had been asked to continue voting during the second half of the show, when the votes had already been counted and the winner announced. The first half of the show was broadcast live, but the second half, after the ITV News, was recorded and shown "as live".

The report made clear that neither Ant and Dec, who last year signed a new £30m deal with ITV, nor Williams were aware of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

But the production company behind the awards criticised Olswang's report as incomplete. "I'm really surprised to see speculation dressed up as fact, and that it's taken eight months from when Olswang were first appointed to come out with a report that takes us no further forward," said Paul Pascoe, a director of Michael Hurll TV.